Fragkiska Megaloudi2015-03-31T14:32:37-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=fragkiska-megaloudiCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Fragkiska MegaloudiGood old fashioned elbow grease.A Foreigner in North Korea: A Personal Account of My Two Years Living in Pyongyangtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.69445922015-03-26T19:00:00-04:002015-03-27T04:59:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/

I lived in Pyongyang for almost two years, from June 2012 to March 2014. I arrived in the country together with my four year old son without knowing what to expect. Before I went to North Korea, I read numerous analysis and watched endless documentaries on the country that left me with the impression that I was about to enter a world of brainwashed "robots". But what I experienced during those two years in DPRK, had nothing to do with the standard stereotypes. I discovered a poor but proud country and friendly people whose worries and dreams would not differ much from the rest of the world.

The Sunan International Airport of DPRK is situated approximately 24km north of Pyongyang. Large areas were hidden behind a giant purple sheet with red banners painted with slogan "at a breath" inciting workers to work harder in the building of the new international terminal.

A smiling police woman and a man in uniform take me and my son to the customs. Everything seems to work pretty fast-the policeman checks our passports and hands over our documents wishing us a nice stay in DPRK. Three young women in uniform play joyfully with my son while we wait for the custom clearance. Definitely this was not the image of the DPRK that one would have on mind..

Cherry blossoms line the side streets along the highway that leads to Pyongyang. Green and yellow corn fields are stretching as far as the eye can see.

As we enter the capital the traffic becomes denser. Expensive cars with tinted windows occasionally pass crowded public buses and trucks crammed with soldiers, prompting traffic officers to raise their hands in a military salute.

In DPRK, I was able to witness its constant transformation. In Pyongyang the military barracks and shabby cottages on the banks of the Taedong River were replaced by roller-coasters, playgrounds, and tennis and basketball courts. The facades of the residential buildings have been repainted in vivid green, orange and red, broken pavements have been repaired and aging buildings were getting upgraded. People adopted a more relaxing attitude towards foreigners and often would come spontaneously to chat with me as I was enjoying the beautiful sunsets in the city.

In downtown Pyongyang, department stores were filled with goods from all over the world: Swiss chocolates, packets of Doritos, Coca-Cola and Italian wine. Clothes from the Spanish Zara stores, Chanel makeup kits and perfumes, watches and jewelry stock the shelves. Chinese middlemen, who serve as brokers between North Korean trading firms and China-based companies, secure a continuous flow of goods and equipment into the country.

Mobile phones and elegant handbags lay on the tables of smartly dressed young women who sip drinks at Sunrise Coffee and Bakery on Chongjin Street. Waitresses roam the tables with iPads, ready to place customers' orders. On the ground floor of the building, a chef dressed in white, prepares lunch boxes of sashimi that are sold next to French cheese and Italian salami. The floor is undergoing renovation and the staff is preparing for the grand opening of a new beerhouse that will serve imported beers, beef entrecotes and German sausages.

In the "new era of prosperity" that the leadership has promised, leisure activities were becoming equally important. Sundays are an official day off but North Koreans traditionally participate in collective labor such as paving sidewalks, gardening of public spaces or planting fields. But over the past couple of years, a more relaxing approach has resulted to a growing number of people taking days off during the weekends. The new parks were full of joyful teenagers playing basketball or volleyball or practicing roller skating; Along the river young couples used to take romantic walks holding hands amidst families enjoying picnics on its banks.

Outside the playgrounds children line up to get marshmallows and candy floss from street vendors. Contrary to what state media claim, playgrounds and parks in Pyongyang are not free of charge. The prices would slightly vary from one location to another, but most of the times, fixed rates apply: 10 won to enter the park and 60 won to use the playground. Renting a pair of roller skates would cost 2,000 won, while an hour in the basketball court is priced at 4,000 won.

Official statistics are not available, but monthly state wages in the country are between 2,000 and 4,000 won. This would make parks expensive for the average North Korean family. But almost all such facilities in Pyongyang were full on a daily basis. People frequenting the parks were certainly not wealthy. Most were dressed in cheap Chinese clothes that left children shivering in the autumn chill. To my view this was an indication that private activities supplementing the meager state salaries were much more widespread than believed, allowing to an increasing number of people to spend money on small pleasures.

The average Korean family relies heavily to the underground network of markets to access food and consumer goods; markets are becoming an increasingly important source of food, especially when the Public Distribution System (PDS) fails to supply people with sufficient quantities of cereals. But they also become a source of additional income; most people seem to earn their basic living through trade while for those with better entrepreneurial skills and connections, markets present a unique opportunity to accumulate wealth and climb the social ladder.

This expansion of the markets, which developed out of necessity during the famine of the 1990s and the collapse of the PDS, has meant that de facto private ownership over productive means has emerged.

This has enabled an increasing number of North Koreans to meet their daily needs themselves and earn a living by trading; but it has also widened the gap between the haves and the haves not.

"A city of two tales"

My apartment is situated at the edge of the diplomatic compound, some 10 minutes drive from Chongjin street and the Kim Il Sung square. All buildings are old and look like reminiscent of a soviet era but the interior is comfortable and warm. A long wire fence sets the limits with the outside world; but we are free to cross our "boundaries" and merge with the ordinary Koreans.

The single-storey houses share a common garden; laundry is hanging on long clotheslines that touch the red peppers drying on the sun.

I used to take long walks in the narrow alleys of Pyongyang. The first to notice my presence in their neighborhoods were always the young children that stared at me before running to hide behind their grandmothers. Some people would wave a timid and curious hello while very few would give me a rather suspicious look.

The air is filled with the moist smell of the fresh garlic. Thick black smoke coming from metallic pots placed outside the houses makes the air unbreathable, and the eyes watery and sore.
Cylindrical coal briquettes-used for heating and cooking- can be seen along the backstreets, covered with plastic sheets and lined in long tidy rows or piled up on balconies. In the narrow alleys, men and women - with faces blackened from the dust - shovel black sticky bricks of coal dust, water and starch into round metal presses and leave them to dry.

As it is always the case with reports about North Korea, the debate can be fierce and many questions are left unanswered. I don't claim to have those answers. I can only speak of what I saw and I know. But politics and dogmatism have done much harm so far. Placing the vulnerable above politics and reinventing our solidarity and acceptance would be a great step forwards.

**All photos are taken by Fragkiska Megaloudi ]]>Hunger Striker Kostas Sakkas: When Justice Is Blindtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.35547482013-07-06T11:34:54-04:002013-09-05T05:12:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/
Kostas Sakkas, a 29 year old Greek political prisoner, has never tried to hide his political beliefs. He is a self-confessed anarchist, charged with gun possession and participation to an unknown terrorist group after being arrested at a warehouse in Athens, in December 2010. He admitted his connection to the weapons found in the warehouse and his detention was ordered. Four months later, and while in detention, he was additionally charged of participating in the organization "Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire" (CCF) a charge that he has fiercely denied and no tangible evidence was found that connect Sakkas to CCF. Members of the organization have also made a public declaration stating that Sakkas has never been in their ranks. It is quite odd the fact that the charges against Sakkas, changed from belonging to an unspecified terrorist group-that had no registered activity or a name, and thus, such a charge could not stand up in any courtroom-to participating to a well-known organization such as the CCF, although no specific evidence was found.

According to the Greek legislation, the maximum pretrial incarceration period for any person accused of a crime can be 18 months. In exceptional cases, and provided certain legal conditions are met, this period may be extended to 30 months.

Two months before his 18 months-detention expired, Sakkas was charged once again for belonging to the same organization (CCF) but this time for different incidents. Instead of being released as it is required by the law, he was again ordered to remain in detention. According to the Greek Penal Code, the period of the second pre -trial detention cannot exceed 12 months. However -and against the law-Sakkas was ordered to remain in detention for an additional six months, even when the 12 months second pre-trial detention has been exhausted. In the meantime, his trial for the first and the second set of charges has not even begun.

Sakkas went on hunger strike on June 4th, which marked the day that he was supposed to be released as the Greek law requires. He was transferred to Nikaia General State Hospital and according to the medical report of his treating physician, his life is in danger as he has already lost 15 per cent of his body mass and his heart or other vital organs could fail at any moment.

The Greek government has failed to provide any legal justification on extending Sakkas detention. New Democracy, the leading party in the government coalition, decided to ignore all protests from human rights groups and organizations along with voices from renowned legal experts that have condemned the illegal detention of Sakkas. The right wing New Democracy decided to use the case as a way to attack politically the opposition left party, SYRIZA, stating that Syriza "should, for once, respect institutions and stop defending everyone accused of anarchy and terrorism".

However Sakkas is not accused neither of anarchy nor terrorism, in fact he has not even been convicted of anything.

What makes the situation even more alarming is the fact that Sakkas absurd and irrational detention has received very little coverage in the Greek media. This comes as no surprise, since the majority of Greek media are owned by the country's oligarch families that control the financial sector and have strong ties with local politicians: journalists prefer to keep quiet in the interests of holding on to their pay cheques, even if the price is the death of a young man whose detention was illegally extended.

Behind Sakkas illegal detention, is the tale of a country that is at the grip of authoritarian rule, of a ruling party that decides in a few hours to shut down the national broadcaster ERT, of a coalition government that rules the country with emergency decrees, and whose newly appointed right wing Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, brought back a regulation for forced testing for HIV on everyone suspected to be sex worker, drug user or undocumented migrant.

Those are issues worth discussing but, as usual, noise is making productive conversation difficult.]]>Aisha, Uganda - 'When You Are a Woman You Have No Voice'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34874142013-06-23T19:57:28-04:002013-08-23T05:12:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/
Aisha, a mother of five, has been suffering domestic violence from her husband for more than 15 years. I met and interviewed her at the Center For Domestic Violence in Kampala, a contact facilitated by Action for Development (Acfode), a non-governmental women's association who aims to improve women's status and lives in Uganda.

This her story, as told by Aisha, 36 years old.

"I was born in Rakai and I went to school up to the age of 14. Then I had to stop because my parents could not pay school fees. I got married at 16 and I came to live in Kireka (a suburb of Kampala). My husband is a builder and in the first 5 ears of our marriage we had no big problems. But then he brought home a second wife and he asked me to leave the house.
I refused to leave the house and he started beating me. I had two children and I was 4 months pregnant. He gave me money and he asked me to have an abortion because he did not want the baby. When I said no, he came back to the house and started kicking me and punching my head on the wall. He locked me out of the house so I went to stay with my mother in law. Things were calm for a while but then my mother in law died and he wanted to sell her property. He would come to the house and he would beat me up in front of the children. At that time I got pregnant again but he did not stop kicking me. I reported him to the Local Council asking for help but he managed to bribe them and they ignored all my pleas.

He used to come to the house occasionally, spent the night but bringing no food for me and my children. One day he came with a note, asking me to go out and buy things for the second wife. When I refused he tried to strangle me, saying that I was of no use. My oldest daughter screamed for help and one of the neighbors came in and pulled my husband away. I reported him again to the Local Council but they did not take any action against him. I contacted FIDA (the association of Uganda Women Lawyers) that helped me to take my case to the court. I had no money to pay the court fees so I dropped my case.

My husband kept on threatening that he will kill me and my children so I reported him to the police. The police arrested him and made him sign a declaration that he would stop harassing me. When we returned home, he came in and started kicking me and punching me. He would also beat the children. One day he took a knife and he tried to cut my throat. He stopped only when the neighbors heard the screams and came in the house. After that, a woman told me to go the Center for Domestic Violence. There, they accompanied me to the police station and I reported him again. This time the police arrested him but he bribed them to escape.

Since then he had disappeared but occasionally he comes around and threats to kill me and my children. I earn 90.000 shillings (€29/$38) per month from three small rentals, but he has been trying to sell my property all that time, leaving me with no money. I have no expectations for my life and I live in the constant fear that my husband will come back any time to kill me and my children.

When you are a woman you have no voice. Men are allowed to do whatever they want and they never get punished".

Some facts on Gender Based Violence in Uganda

The 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) revealed that 82 percent of violence against women is caused by a spouse-who is often drunk- while in northern Uganda seven out of ten of married women have experienced a form of violence from their partner.

Ugandan women confront a male-dominated power structure that justifies men's entitlement to dictate the terms of relationships and marriage. Customs such as the payment of bride price, widow inheritance by a man of his brother's widow, or polygynous marriages render women even more vulnerable to abusive relationships and often expose them to a higher risk of HIV transmission.

Domestic and sexual violence deprives women of bodily integrity and eliminates their ability to negotiate their placement in the society.

Sexual violence remains one of the leading crimes in Uganda but the perpetrators often go unpunished. According to a 2011 Crime and Traffic Police Report, while some 8,000 cases on defilement and 520 cases of rape were investigated, only 269 suspects were arrested and charged in court.

Fighting violence against women and girls requires above all significant changes in individual and community cultural beliefs towards such violence. Poverty, ignorance and negative cultural attitudes against women increase women's vulnerability, especially in rural areas. Statistics published by Unicef in its 2008 report indicate that 77% of women in Uganda, consider domestic violence justified if the woman burns food or refuses to comply to her husband' wishes.

All photos by Fragkiska Megaloudi

]]>When Water Is for Sale: What Water Privatisation Really Meanstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33812332013-06-03T19:53:04-04:002013-08-03T05:12:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/
The dominant argument is that the state takes too long to provide the necessary services which are deemed ineffective; in reality, however, the countries that have applied this doctrine were led to the creation of a powerful private monopoly where acquisitions and mergers shattered any sense of competition and hope for reduced tariffs.

From the beginning of 1980s until 2000, there was a huge pressure from international financial institutions and multinational corporations to privatise public water companies. The result was that 5 major corporations, Veolia, Suez, Agbar, RWE and Saur, held 71% of the global water market in 2001. But the reaction of citizens, led to renationalisation of the networks. Today, large corporations own only 34% of the market while 90% of the 400 largest cities in the world still have a public water network. In 2011 only 12% of the water on a global scale was in private hands. Privatisation has now taken the form of investment in hard technology and purchase of water rights.

But what has happened in countries where the network was privatised?

Argentina was one of the first countries to privatise the water network. In 1993 the government gave the municipal water supply in a consortium of multinational and local companies. The World Bank rushed to congratulate Argentina´s move, describing it as the most promising investment. But the joy did not last long. Companies placed their friends in key positions of the government paying them huge salaries, which led to imposing high tariffs that affected millions of poor. In many cases companies increased their profits by reducing maintenance costs and did not replace old pipes, thus the water flooded the poorest neighbourhoods. With the economic crisis that followed, consumers could no longer pay for their water bills in 2005, the corporations Suez and Aguas de Barcelona withdrew from the program. The government renationalised the network whose damages were so severe that it had to be restored from scratch.

In South Africa, the privatisation of water supply resulted in one of the worst cholera epidemics in the poor neighbourhoods of Johannesburg in 2000-2002. The outbreak started when residents of slams were disconnected from the private water supply because they could not pay their increased bills. Without safe sanitation and no access to clean water, residents were forced to drink water from contaminated rivers. The cholera epidemic resulted in more than 100,000 people becoming ill and at least 100 losing their lives. The government reacted vigorously and forced the private companies to provide at least 25 litters of water per day to every resident during the epidemic. While companies had strongly protested against this decision they complied but continued to disconnect the water for the poor.

In Africa, perhaps the most striking privatisation case is that of Tanzania. In 2003 the country was forced by the World Bank and the IMF to immediately privatise their outdated and inefficient public water supply network in exchange for loans. Since nobody wanted to invest in the market of Tanzania and the IMF exerted increasing pressure, the country was forced to sell off the network to the British company Biwater. The irony of the decision was that the Tanzanian government had to participate in the financing of the investment with Biwater, using the same loans that were given by the IMF and the World Bank in exchange for the privatisation. Within a year of the advent of Biwater, consumers saw their water bills tripling while the poorest got disconnected from the main water supply. In fact, 98% of the network served the wealthy few, leaving millions of people without water. The company made no investment which was against the agreement and accused the government of giving false evidence and claimed that the investment was unprofitable. Tanzania finally renationalised the water network and expelled Biwater from the country. Biwater then led Tanzania to court but lost the lawsuit in 2008 and was forced to pay 3 million pounds to the government in compensation.

The selling of the water supply network in the capital of the Philippines, Manila, was regarded as the most ambitious and "successful" privatisation experiment. In 1997 the government faced financial trouble and after following the World Bank's advice decided that, in order to fill the financial gaps, water must be sold. The network was already in poor condition and 4 out of the 11 million inhabitants had no connection. The network was divided into two zones and was given to a consortium of companies (among them was Bretchel, known by the subsequent invasion in Iraq). During the first years prices were reduced by half and connections reached 87% of residents, due to competition. As of 2001, however, the situation changed dramatically. Prices went up 500% compared to 1997 levels and the average family spent 10% of its income on water bills. About 40% of the bill was not related to consumption but to illegal charges. In 2003 more than 800 people were affected by a cholera epidemic in the network, caused by poor maintenance of piping and non-repair of leaks.

In 2008 in France, the city of Paris decided not to renew the contract with the companies Veolia and Suez who owned the network since 1985, and to assign the water system to the municipality. In 2010 the municipal company Eau de Paris was founded and the city managed to save 35 million euros per year while reducing the tariffs by 8%.

In Germany, water agencies are owned by the public sector everywhere except in Berlin while the Netherlands in 2004 declared by law the participation of any private agency in water services as illegal.

Thus, while privatisation of water has failed and there is a strong tendency worldwide towards renationalisation, the European Commission requires the selling of water supply as a condition for the financial bailout of Greece and Portugal. The Greek government and its supporters, regardless of the consequences, fully endorsed the legislation on privatisation, including the water supply network.

Who will pay the actual cost remains to be seen.

An earlier version of this article appeared in Greek as a part of a larger civil initiative to prevent the privatization of state water company by the Greek government and it was translated in English by Yannis Fanourakis]]>Crossing Into the Unknown: The Plight of Migrants in the Fields of Greecetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31300392013-04-23T19:00:00-04:002013-06-23T05:12:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/This report is based on extensive field work (February-March 2013) on the island of Crete (Herakleio, Ierapetra, Anogeia) and it is a joint research project with photographer Stylianos Papardelas

The recent shooting of Bangladeshi workers, in South Greece, after they demanded outstanding wages might have shocked the nation, but it has put in the spotlight the plight of migrants that enter Greece every year; migrants seeking a better life within the European Union.

As Greece enters its fifth year of recession - and Greeks are reeling under the weight of salary slashes, a rising tax burden and euro zone's highest unemployment rate - life for migrants is becoming tougher amid rising racism as well as a drop in living standards. However, third country nationals are still widely used as cheap labor notably in constructions and the agricultural sector.

Some 550,000 people of Greece's four million working population work in agriculture, with 95 per cent of its cultivated surface owned and operated by small farmers.
Every year, thousands of migrant workers are employed in farms and greenhouses, which earn more than 3 per cent of Greece's GDP.

Half of Greece's plastic-topped greenhouses - that account for 51.360 square meters - are located on the island of Crete. Majority of those - some 17.000 square meters - are found in Ierapetra, a small town of 27,000 inhabitants, on the south east coast of Crete.

It is estimated that more than 10,000 foreign workers are employed each year in the farms and greenhouses of south eastern Crete. Most often they are undocumented and housed in primitive conditions.

Salim*, a 25-year-old Pakistani national, crossed the border illegally into Greece in 2009 after having paid Turkish smugglers, $2000.
He arrived in Ierapetra two years ago to work on the greenhouses. When he started, he said he could earn around 17 euro per day, but now can barely survive. Salim has not been paid for four whole months.

He shares a two roomed house with another two men. The smell of dampness and stale food fills the air. There is no bathroom and the three men use an outbuilding transformed into makeshift 'toilet'. Each month, they pay 100 euro to live like this.

Salim points at one of his roommates, a young skinny man who stares nervously at the floor.
"His boss promised to pay him 15 euro per day to work in the greenhouses. It's been a year now and he still did not get paid. When we asked for the money, the boss threatened to call the police", he says.

The greenhouses need a constant supply of cheap labor to operate. The work is tough and the temperatures inside can reach 40-45C. The legal minimum wage for a day's work is currently fixed at 33 euro but migrant workers rarely get paid more than 15 euro. Most often than not, they don't get paid at all. The employer refuses to pay the wages, threatening to report the migrant to the police if he complains.

"The boss prefer to employ migrants without papers", says Salim.
"When the work is done, they threaten to call the police. You have to shut your mouth if you want to survive".

Even in times of crisis, young Greeks have a preference to find employment in their chosen industry or skills set whilst relying on their families for financial support. They do this instead of taking what they perceive to be low-class and low-paid work. Therefore, farmers have to rely heavily on low paid migrants to work in their fields. The economic crisis has also aggravated the situation. With the price of fuel and fertilizers tripling in the last two years, and the high transportation costs, farmers claim that the only way to survive the crisis is to cut down on wages.

"Prices have gone up during the last three years and it's very difficult to make profit any more", says Manolis*, a producer at the local farmer's market of Ierapetra.

"Conditions are tough and very few Greeks accept to work for 20 euro. I use foreigners and I never face problems. Those who have problems are the ones who don't pay them."

"Foreigners are not welcome here", says Katerina*, a woman in her fifties and owner of a restaurant in the center of Ierapetra. Although she has been married to a third country national for more than 20 years, she can still feel the discrimination in her community because "people will point their finger on the one who mixes with the foreigners".

The two communities remain largely segregated. Migrant workers - notably from south Asia - live hidden in old houses and shacks near the fields, slowly creeping into town at daybreak, queuing up in the roads and looking for casual work.
For Katerina, the working conditions are equal to slavery.

"Everyone knows this system exists but nobody wants to acknowledge it. The Pakistanis here live worse than animals", she says.

"They are being constantly harassed and accused of all sorts of things: from assaulting old ladies to eating dogs. They are so poor that is an easy target. If a gang of youth wants to have fun, they beat up Pakistanis".

Only two months ago, three Pakistani migrants were attacked in the small village of Vainia northern of Ierapetra, by a gang of ten men. They were beaten with wood and iron sticks. The men were members of the Neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, the same political party that won 18 seats in last June's parliamentary elections. The violence occurred after a series of racist attacks against immigrants in the broader region of Lassithi causing a public outcry in Crete.

"Foreigners are excluded of any decision about the community regardless if they reside legally or not", says Alexia, an elementary teacher, who has been living in Ierapetra for the last five years.

"Three years ago we started a centre for immigrants offering language courses and vocational training. We had to shut down quickly due to lack of support from the community."

"Greece does not have a fair and effective asylum system and the immigration laws are complicated and often unclear. As a result asylum seekers and migrants face many obstacles even to register their claims. Those who do not succeed to lodge an application are often detained in inhuman conditions", says Emmanouil Androulidakis, an immigration lawyer and member of the Human Rights Committee of the Herakleion Lawyers Association.

Government figures indicate that only 1545 from the 45,089 applications for asylum filed between 2009 and 2012 were successful and Greece has been often under criticism from human rights group on its immigration policies.

"There is an increase of negative attitudes towards immigrants", admits Emanouella Tsatsaki, social worker at the City Council of Herakleion, but insists that racist violence is marginal in Crete.

"At municipality level we encourage the participation of migrants in the decision making though structures such as the Immigrant Integration Council and through municipal consultancy services and awareness events".

The financial crisis might have made people suspicious towards foreigners but it has also enhanced solidarity.

"People might say that free food distribution should prioritize the Greeks but there is a strong support network in the community regardless of origin", she claims.

This is the case of Anogeia, a mountainous village, some 36 kilometers west of Herakleio - where the Reception Centre for Refugees Unaccompanied Minors of the National Youth Foundation, opened its doors 12 years ago thanks to funding from the European Refugee Fund. Since then, the centre has accommodated some 300 unaccompanied children, aged between 13 and 18, offering vocational training, language courses and so much needed psychosocial support.

Ahmed's story is typical of thousands of adolescents that escaped war-ridden Afghanistan, eight years ago at the tender age of 14. After having paid smugglers in Iran $3000 to cross the mountainous borders with Turkey on foot, he was asked to jump in a rubber boat with another five men. He survived a three-day perilous sea travel before being intercepted by the Greek coast guard on the shores of the island of Chios. Released on a deportation order, he spent eight months in Athens, sleeping in a public park and eating free food ratios.

With the help of UNHCR, Ahmed lodged an asylum application and was sent to the Anogeia Unit.

"When I first arrived at Anogeia, I did not want to get out of my room. I would stay inside for days staring at the ceiling", recalls Ahmed, now 23. But thanks to the support of the centres personnel, Ahmed was integrated into the local community.

"I have friends here and my life is good, but some people don't like to see foreigners progressing", he says and recalls the day that someone cut the tires of his newly bought second had car.

His former employer at a local diary factory still owes him wages that account for 8000 euros.

Ahmed does not want to leave Greece and have dreams of starting a family. But any interaction with local girls is excluded as the local community does not encourage such contacts. He is still waiting for his asylum application to be processed.

Yannis, a 24-year-old national from Afghanistan who wants to be identified with his Greek name, came to the centre seven years ago. He paid smugglers in Iran to hide him in the baggage space of a bus crossing into Turkey. From there he was packed like cargo into a fishing boat and arrived in the Greek island of Mytelene.

Like Ahmed, he wandered for several months in Athens, sleeping in public parks and eating food rations until he was sent to Anogeia through the Greek Refugee Council.

He says that life in Anogeia is much better compared to other villages and towns in Crete.

"The mayor and the community are very supportive. People treat us well because they know that we come from the centre".

Marina Stavrakaki is in charge of the Anogeia Unit. "The children are fully integrated in the community. They learn Greek, they work, some of them attend the local high school but the state still refuses to grant them papers", she says. From the 280 children that have been living in the Center since its opening, only five have been granted asylum.

Today, Mohammad is 22. After a long journey on foot from Syria to Turkey and then Greece, including two months in a detention center, he came to find himself in Anogeia.

"I have my friends, a good boss, people take care of me and love me. I don't want to go back to Syria, this is my home now", he says.
But Mohammad cannot plan his future. Without papers he lives in constant fear of deportation.

"The children have experienced a lot of trauma and when they come to our center are withdrawn and deprived of stimulation. Often they suffer from depression and emotional problems." says Stavrakaki.

"We help them built a new life but without papers, what choices are left for them?"

*names have changed to protect identities

The people depicted in the slide show are not the ones mentioned or interviewed in the article

]]>Growing Police Brutality in Greece: The Hidden Face of the Crisistag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26365292013-02-07T19:00:00-05:002013-04-09T05:12:01-04:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/
Almost every family has been hit by the crisis and everyone has a story to tell about a relative or a friend who has lost a job and struggles to survive. Greek GDP has shrunk by 6.5 per cent in 2012 and Greece's economy is expected to contract further in 2013 under the weight of the next round of austerity measures demanded by international creditors.

And while much has been said over the economic figures, on the fate of Greek democracy there is silence. With Greeks suffering under austerity measures with no end, and the country paralyzed by nationwide strikes, accusations of torture and ill-treatment by Greek police have multiplied.

Recently, Greek police have allegedly tortured four bank-robbery suspects that were arrested beginning of February in the north of the country. According to their families the young men, aged between 20 and 24 and allegedly belonging to a local terrorist group, were hooked and severely beaten during detention. While images of the suspects published by the media show extensive bruising, the police released photographs of all four, digitally manipulated in an effort to erase bruises and cuts, causing a public outcry.

As society's crisis deepens in Greece, police brutality is on the rise. From the very beginning Greek citizens have opposed the austerity measures with general strikes, demonstrations and occupation of squares. The answer was excessive police force, tear gas, injuries and unjustified detention of protesters.

In other instances protesters were used by the riot police as human shields: a photograph circulated on the internet shows a female protester in handcuffs ahead of policemen as people threw stones against the officers, during protests over the October visit of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Athens.

Of all cases, not a single one has been prosecuted.

Police brutality has a long history in Greece, and even the murder of teenagers by the police forces is not unprecedented. In 1976, two years after the collapse of the military junta that ruled the country from 1967 to 1974, Sideris Isidoropoulos, a 16 year old teenager and activist, was killed by police forces while putting up campaign posters on a public building. In November 1980, riot police has beaten to death 20 year old protester Stamatina Kanelopoulou, during a demonstration to commemorate the 1973 uprising against the military junta. Five years later, in 1985, 15 year old Michalis Kaltezas, was shot in the head by a policeman during clashes following protests in Athens. The police officer was acquitted of the charges. In December 2008 a police officer shot dead 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos, during demonstrations in Athens downtown. According to eye witness the police officer took aim at the boy and shot him at the chest. The murder of the 15 year old sparkled nationwide riots in the country. Unlike other cases that went unpunished, the police officer was convicted of murder for the shooting of the teenager.

What makes the situation in Greece even more alarming is the fact that most cases of excessive police and state brutality go unreported. As the majority of Greek media are owned by the country's oligarch families that control the financial sector and have strong ties with local politicians, journalists prefer to keep quiet in the interests of holding on to their pay cheques.

Recently, a reporter working for the investigative journalism magazine Unfollow, received death threats by a man who identified himself as oil magnate Dimitris Melissanidis, after publishing a report on an oil smuggling scandal implicating Melissanidis company Aegean Oil. The death threats made against the journalist, received very little coverage in local media.

As Greece descends into further chaos amid mounting social and political tensions, democracy is in peril in the land that its own concept was born.

The European political and economic elites fail to understand that democracy and social justice, values upon which the concept of the European Union was built, are now being undermined by unilateral imposition of severe social cuts and wages slashes that impoverish nations and give rise to extremism and chaos. The Greek coalition government fails its own people and is unable to ensure justice and basic rights for its citizen.

What meaningful choices are left for the people? This seems to be the question that no one can answer in Greece any more.]]>Rising Death in the Streets of Athens: The Human Toll of the Greek Tragedytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24110032013-01-06T19:00:00-05:002013-03-08T05:12:01-05:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/This report was made in collaboration with photojournalist Dimitrios Bouras and is the result of extensive field work in the streets of Athens over the last two years.

It's a cold winter afternoon and Maria* is fixing her makeup in a glittered storefront window in downtown Athens. Maria, an occasional sex worker, is 27 years old, but drug use and life on the streets have left her looking older.

Her two front teeth are missing and her skin badly damaged by 'sisa', a dangerous mix of crystal meth and unidentified chemicals that has invaded the Greek drug market over the last two years. Costing just two to three euros per fix, the new drug has proven a popular alternative to heroin.
The dire economic situation has forced more drug users into prostitution and addicts are more willing to take risks with men who pay more for unprotected sex. Maria's clients are Greek married middle aged men who buy sex from drug users for 10 to 15 euros.

"They usually buy sex in the morning and they don't use condoms", says Maria, who recently discovered she was HIV positive. "I refuse unprotected sex, but men become pushy and it's hard to say no", she adds.

As Greece enters its third year of financial crisis, economic hardship and despair is fraying the country's social fabric. In a nation of 11 million, almost four million people are unemployed, while those still working have seen their salaries cut by more than 30% since 2009.

As part of its strict austerity measures set by foreign creditors, Greece is forced to keep public health expenditures below 6% of its gross domestic product which was worth $298.73 billion dollars in 2011. However, the average for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is 9%.

While the Greek government has been reluctant to pass reforms that would hit the country's oligarch families who control the financial sector, it was fast to cut social programmes and welfare by 40%, introduce patient fees for all outpatient visits, and slash the salaries of hospital staff.
As a result, the country has witnessed an alarming surge in intravenous drug usage, prostitution and HIV infections.

Until 2010, HIV infections amongst injecting drug users (IDU) were 10 to 15 per year. In 2011, this number jumped to 256, while in the first half of 2012 an additional 314 cases were reported, the Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported. This represents a total increase of almost 1,500%.

"The economic crisis has affected dramatically the lives of all Greeks, but people who use drugs were the hardest hit", says Charalampos Poulopoulos, director of the Therapy Center for Dependent Individuals (KETHEA), one of Greece's largest networks of drug outreach and rehab facilities. "Treating the addiction and keep people in a therapeutic community costs six times less than confinement. However, the government has cut social spending without taking into account the humanitarian and social cost. This creates a very dangerous situation", he adds.

KETHEA alone, has seen its budget slashed by almost 8 million - from 24 to 16 million euros - since 2009 and its staff reduced by 15%.

"There is a feeling of despair among drug users. As all safety nets are tearing apart, users have lost their motivation to change their lives. And this also contributes to the rise of HIV infections", Poulopoulos explained.

According to data from the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO), there is an estimated 25,000 drug addicts in Greece with more than 10,000 being IDUs, mostly in Athens. However, many still feel they are just the tip of the iceberg.

Open drug use in Athens

In one of the most frequented streets of the Greek capital, Nikos*, 35, lies in a dirty blanket. Besides him, 40-year-old Yannis* prepares a mix of cheap heroin and sedatives known in the streets as 'thai' costing between five and seven euros per fix. With trembling hands Yannis shoots up 'thai' in his inner forearm. Families with children, young couples and migrants pass by, but no one cares what they are seeing.

"I either have to buy needles on the streets or share one after rinsing it with water," says Nikos. "Pharmacies used to provide needles for a small fee or free of charge, but this has changed over the last two-three years."

"Five to four years ago, it was easier to get needles. Now it's getting tough," says Dimitris*, a 50 year old heroin addict. "I earn my fix by selling syringes for one euro. Sometimes I sell them for 30 to 40 cents, sometimes for ten."

Needles and syringes are distributed in Athens mainly through outreach workers who provide 'kits' containing needles, syringes, and other drug preparation equipment, along with condoms to users, free of charge. In 2011, there were about 120,000 syringes distributed according to ECDC data. This is approximately 15 syringes per user per year, still very low to an average of 200 syringes per user recommended by the World Health Organization as a measure to contain HIV epidemic.

"The situation is alarming as we have passed from four to five HIV infections among IDUs per year, to more than 500 in less than two years", warns Marianela Kloka, director of Positive Voice, an Athens-based NGO working against the spread of HIV, adding that Greece has never had harm reduction policies in place.

"Budget cuts have worsened an already existing problem. Needle exchange programmes have never been adequate and there was a total lack of coordination among the different organizations engaged in harm reduction. Now that the financial crisis has changed the pattern of drug use and IDUs inject cheaper drugs several times per day, the need of greater needle coverage is urgent", she adds.

Drug trade with impunity

The financial crisis has changed the type of drugs available in the Greek drug market that has adapted fast to the changing economic reality. 'Thai' and cocaine became the main drugs traded while locally produced crystal meth or 'sisa' is traded in specific areas of the city center.

A fix is sold in the shape of a tiny ball weighing no more than 0.01 of a gram forcing users to buy eight to ten shots per day to support their habit. As a result the profit for the dealers remains high, despite the low price of the fix, as each fix costs five to seven euro, depending on the kind of drug.

Drug trade in Athens downtown is well structured and is taking place around the historic centre and the surrounding neighborhoods. The areas are divided into 'drug zones' belonging to different criminal groups each one trading specific kind of drugs.

Undocumented immigrants mainly from sub-Saharan and north Africa are 'recruited' by local mafia and pushed into the illegal drug market, often as a way to pay off their trafficking fees.

Such is the case of Raymon*, 35, from Somalia, who entered Greece illegally after a 40 day perilous journey to reach the EU nation. After arriving along the Turkish coast, he was asked to jump in a rubber boat together with ten other men.

"We arrived on a rocky shore and the driver (of the boat) left us there. We asked a man where we were. 'This is Greece'. We were happy; we were in Europe".

After spending two days on the island of Lesvos, Raymon was brought by a fellow man in the port of Piraeus. He was immediately recruited to sell heroin in Victoria square, a central spot in downtown Athens, as a way to pay off his trafficking fees. Today Raymon is homeless and addicted to heroin himself. He no longer works for the network and has taken to begging on the streets to survive. He claims that the illegal drug trade is protected by corrupted police officials who inform local mafia on police raids and make sure that those arrested are released.

"Drug trade is divided in different zones with each one having its own police protection. In my area, a police lieutenant known as 'Father' was our focal point. He was making sure that police will not bother us", he says.

Raymon claims that 'Father' had provided him with the personal number of a police officer at the local police department in Athens downtown, whom he could call in case of arrest. "In less than 20 minute I was back in the streets", he says. Greek police, when asked to comment on the claims of police officers involved in drug related crimes, declined to answer.

Cases of corruption are not rare in Greek police forces. In November, a criminal network of 67 people involved in drug and arm trafficking on the island of Crete was dislocated by Greek authorities. Among those arrested were three police officers, two of them lieutenants that were acting as informants for the network. In early December, Greek authorities arrested seven more police officers that are allegedly part of a criminal drug trade network in mainland Greece.

There is a sense of abandon, when walking in downtown Athens today. Open drug use within a view of the nation's parliament, an alarming surge in HIV infections and a total collapse of the health system and all safety nets are signs of a society that its priorities are out of balance.

Meanwhile, down on the streets, there is a feeling that Greece is unraveling as a modern state.

*Names have changed to protect identities.

]]>Gay People Living in Fear in Greecetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21750562012-11-25T19:00:00-05:002013-01-25T05:12:01-05:00Fragkiska Megaloudihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/fragkiska-megaloudi/
"I tried to ignore him, hoping he would just go away," Peramatzis recalls. "But he didn't. He came back together with another guy, dressed in black, yelling they were going to teach us a lesson." But the two men were lucky. A security guard came to their rescue and the worst did not happen.

Peramatzis, who works for an international NGO in Athens, did not report the incident to the police. "My boyfriend was shocked and scared. We knew that the police would not do much to assist us".

Such is the new reality of being a gay in Greece today, where economic turmoil and a rise in national fervour has resulted in a spike in hate crimes against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT).

Last August, 25-year old Stefanos Agelastos, a science student and gay activist, was accompanying a friend to a bus stop when two men on a motorcycle asked them if they were gay. When Agelastos acknowledged he was, the men attacked them.

"Suddenly, they started punching and kicking us. We were shocked. I managed to grab my mobile phone and call the police."

Agelastos bitterly recalls that not one of the passersby came to their rescue. "People just ignored what was happening. Only a shop keeper from Pakistan and a drug user who was wandering in the street came to help". And though the young man reported the incident to the police, his assailants were never identified.

Although Greece has antidiscrimination laws protecting gays in employment, there are no hate crimes per se in its criminal code. Very few cases are being reported to the police because gay men and women fear further discrimination. At the same time the police remain poorly trained to handle increased homophobia and in most cases encourage the complainers to drop the charges.

Of four such cases filed since September in Athens, not a single case has been prosecuted.

"Homophobia is not something new. Greek society has always been profoundly conservative and oppressive," says Agelastos, who now lives in Spain with his partner. "Some years back, when I kissed my boyfriend in a public bus, passengers protested and verbally abused us."
This is not surprising. In 2003, a Greek television station was fined 100,000 euros for showing two men kissing, while in October this year, Greece's national broadcaster E.R.T. cut a scene of a gay kiss from the evening British television series Downton Abbey.

"Before the financial crisis, people were tolerant as long as things were not visible. This tolerance was superficial. People were just too selfish," says Elena Diamantopoulou, an activist at Color Youth, a non-profit LGBT organization, adding that the root cause of discrimination is the lack of education. "There is no sex education in Greek schools and no discussion on sexual and gender identity."

However, the situation has been aggravated with the financial crisis that has hit Greece hard over the last three years, activists say.

The official unemployment rate has reached 25%t and half of Greece's youth are without work. Wages have fallen by a third since 2009 and more than three million live in this nation of 11 million with less than 300 euros per month, while prices in basic commodities have skyrocketed.

This increase in poverty and political instability has given rise to the far right Golden Dawn party which until recently had been largely obscure, winning 18 seats in last June's parliamentary elections.

Legitimized by the media, Golden Dawn has since emerged as a 'player' in Greek politics by playing on real social anxieties and turning the country's most vulnerable into scapegoats to the current crisis. After beating up immigrants-or anyone they presume not to be Greek-along with stepping up their presence on the streets, Golden Dawn MPs are now leading gangs of supporters to raid and smash migrants stalls in the local flea markets.

In October, supporters and MPs of Golden Dawn, attacked a theater showing Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi - a play depicting Jesus and his apostles as gay men in Texas - and forcing the show to be cancelled. As the actors cowered inside, calling frantically the police, one Golden Dawn MP was filmed outside, calling the actors "little faggots" and warning that "your time has come, you little whores".

"Homophobic attacks have always existed in Greece. In most cases they go unreported, as there is a general fear of reporting them to the police," says Andrea Gilbert, a spokesperson of the Athens Pride, a gay rights organization. "However over the last year there is a clear increase in antigay attacks. The perpetrators now act in seeming impunity and although we are not always able to name them as members of the Golden Dawn, their attacks follow the same patterns of the Golden Dawn's attacks against migrants. These people hate migrants, gays, foreigners, women. They hate everyone".

So bad is the current situation that some have equated the attacks as similar to what happened in the early days of the Nazi party in Germany, when fascist gangs of uniformed men openly attacked gays, Jews, and others deemed socially undesirable.

"People are afraid to go out anymore. They don't dare hold hands in public. The attacks deprive them of basic human rights, such as freedom of expression or the right to walk freely in the streets," says Gilbert.

Earlier in November, a gang of 12 men dressed in black who identified themselves as members of Golden Dawn physically attacked and chased volunteers distributing anti-hate flyers in Gazi, a gay-friendly area of Athens.

"How can we ask our volunteers to go out and distribute flyers to the public? How can we send a 19 or a 20-year-old, out in the streets to raise awareness only to be physically assaulted by a gang of Golden Dawn supporters?" asks Gilbert.

But what is even more worrying now is the escalation of the attacks. Since August, there have been at least two homophobic attacks per month - and those are only the ones officially reported, although activists believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Today, gangs riding motorbikes and dressed in black, often carrying knifes, patrol the gay-friendly areas of the Greek capital, verbally and physically attacking those they assume to be gay, although the Greek police is not reporting any official figures. "If we look at the big picture, these attacks do not come as a surprise. The whole attitude of the Greek state and Greek society is racist," says Diamantopolou of Color Youth.

Only a few months ago, Greek authorities published photos and the personal data of HIV-positive sex workers, which resulted in a public outcry. The former Greek health minister Andreas Loverdos went so far as to propose the deportation of foreign sex workers with HIV saying that "the disease is transmitted from illegal immigrants to the Greek client, and consequently to the Greek family".

But, despite rising levels of fear in Greece's gay community, many remain resolute, noting that the recent attacks have actually made people more determined and unified.

"We will never abandon the fight and we will never leave the streets," says Diamantopoulou. "I will be there each day distributing anti-hate flyers and raising awareness. We came a long way, and we won't let a bunch of thugs intimidate us."]]>